Squaring a Circle: To What Extent Are Traditional Circuit Analogies Impeding Synthetic Biology?
Name
GEN Biotech revised_4.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
1.16 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
76871101c7bcec8ac5dea9d249d0f0cc
Author(s)
Ilia, Katherine
Del Vecchio, Domitilla
Date Issued
April 1, 2022
Journal
GEN Biotechnology
Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert Inc
Citation
Ilia, Katherine and Del Vecchio, Domitilla. 2022. "Squaring a Circle: To What Extent Are Traditional Circuit Analogies Impeding Synthetic Biology?." GEN Biotechnology, 1 (2).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Synthetic biology has been significantly shaped by modular design principles through analogies to electrical and computer engineering. Although convenient, these parallels often break down in practice, and we are still largely unable to engineer sophisticated systems that behave as predicted. As nature has achieved robust and intricate programs without requiring strict modularity, we may want to revisit genetic circuit design approaches. Rather than pursuing modularity, we could aim for a robust and scalable design framework that embraces the uncertainty that context dependence brings to engineering in a biological chassis. Systems and control theory offer a starting point, but a substantial conceptual leap will be needed to quantitatively predict system behavior and establish flexible context-aware design processes. Only by overcoming these hurdles shall we be able to capitalize on synthetic biology in particular—and on biotechnology in general—for medicine, environmental engineering, and energy production.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Synthetic Biology Center
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1089/genbio.2021.0014
